In meetings with US senators on Tuesday, US Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito said that the Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing women the right to an abortion was long-standing precedent and therefore entitled to respect. Speaking to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) he did not, however, commit to upholding the decision in the [...]

Leading Tuesday's environmental law news, the US Environmental Protection Agency has announced it will propose regulations for remodeling or renovating a home with lead-based paint by the end of the year. A federal law had been passed in 1992 that requires contractors to disseminate information to homeowners before renovating certain properties, but the EPA has [...]

Italian state TV RAI Tuesday aired a documentary accusing the United States of using the chemical white phosphorus against both insurgents and civilians during a military assault on the insurgent-controlled city of Fallujah last year. Reports that US forces fired white phosphorous rounds into the city, causing severe burns, were circulated at the time , [...]

US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Tuesday called for a Congressional investigation into who leaked information on secret Central Intelligence Agency prison facilities in Eastern Europe rumored to be used to detain international terrorism suspects. Last week, the Washington Post reported that the CIA was holding suspected al Qaeda [...]

The Pentagon on Tuesday announced it has issued a new directive restricting interrogation practices of suspected terrorists. Department of Defense Directive 3115.09 establishes the broad requirement that all intelligence interrogations of detained individuals be conducted in a humane manner. Although the directive was intended to set general policy rather than specific rules, it specifically prohibits [...]

Ralph Uwazurike , the leader of a Nigerian separatist organization has been charged with treason for his role in campaigning for the creation of an independent Biafra Nation . Uwazurike and six other alleged co-conspirators have denied any intention to take up arms to intimidate the Nigerian government . Uwazurike is the alleged leader of [...]

The first hearing in the criminal trial of US Rep. Tom DeLay will be held November 22, Senior Judge Pat Priest has announced. Attorneys for DeLay have asked the judge, who was appointed to the case last week, to first hear a motion for change of venue; DeLay has said that the trial should be [...]

The Rwandan government wants to send a Catholic priest back to his home of Belgium to face trial on genocide charges and asked its highest court on Tuesday for permission to do so. Catholic missionary Guy Theunis is accused of publishing extremist articles that incited Hutus to kill Tutsis during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda [...]

The Pentagon has said that it is committed to proceeding with a preliminary military commission hearing for Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks despite the US Supreme Court's announcement Monday that it will hear a case challenging the legality of the military commissions. The Pentagon says that it will not voluntarily delay the November 18th [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in IBP Inc. v. Alvarez that meat packing companies must pay their workers for the time it takes to change into and out of protective clothing and other safety equipment, in addition to the time it takes the employees to walk to their work stations. In the unanimous opinion [...]